I had heard that Amazon flew a bunch of high-profile New York City literary agents into town last week, but Amazon, as per usual, refused to comment on the matter. I was contacted by several people who were concerned that Amazon was going to start trying to publish authors on their own, removing publishers from the equation entirely. That didn't sound like Amazon to me, but I couldn't get anyone to confirm or deny the rumors. Crain's New York today reports on what happened in a post titled "Amazon sucks up to literary agents."

Amazon flew a dozen agents out to Seattle for a daylong conference in which they basically pitched the Kindle as a source of profit for publishing.

The agents wanted specific information about sales of Kindle editions and devices, which could help them in negotiations with publishers. Amazon executives, famously tight-lipped about all Kindle-related data, said that for competitive reasons they could not give out that information.

The two sides agreed that publishers stood to make a lot more money selling e-books than hardcovers.

Of course, publishing could also make a metric shit-ton of money by abolishing the hardcover and publishing affordable paperbacks at ten bucks a pop or less, too, but that doesn't mean that they're going to.

Still, this attempt to woo agents represents a remarkable change of policy on Amazon's part. They usually don't play ball with the New York big-shots, and putting agents like Melanie Jackson, Ira Silverberg, Charlotte Sheedy, Nicole Aragi and Melanie Jackson at the Hotel Andra is a big deal for the company. And there's a positive angle for the local literary scene too: If Amazon keeps trying to play with the big dogs this way, shipping them out here for conferences and fancy dinners, Seattle will finally get the attention it deserves from the major publishers. I've heard that publishers were going to send fewer big touring authors to Seattle in an attempt to save money. Amazon's increased profile, at least, should remind them that there's more to Seattle than they can monetize in a simple cash transaction from a reading: With the exception of New York City, we're the most important book town in America.

What's the book? Air Volume 2: Flying Machine by G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker.

What's it about? I reviewed Volume 1 of Air a few months ago. It's an ongoing comics series about a stewardess named Blythe who's afraid of flying. She gets swept into a huge conspiracy that involves weird flying machines and countries that don't exist. In the second volume, Blythe gets a few answers and has her first proactive moment in the whole series.

What's the art look like?

Do you recommend it? Yes, with reservations. I'm intrigued with Air. I like that it's an ongoing conspiracy comic book with a literary vibe, written by a woman and starring a female protagonist. But this collection just feels like so much wheel-spinning. Nothing really happens, and it ends with an unsatisfying step outside of the narrative that may foreshadow some great things to come, but ultimately provides an unexciting climax to the book. And Perker's art is still noodly and flat. If the third volume isn't exceptional, I'm done with this book.

What's the second book? Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell.

What's it about? Follow me after the jump and I'll tell you.

Jaden Hair is at University Book Store tonight. Hair is the author of Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. Hair is an awful name for a chef.

Jeffrey Kotebra grew up with Tourette's Syndrome. He has also been struck by lightning. Inklings is his memoir about those experiences, and he'll read from it tonight at Elliott Bay Book Company.

But no contest: The reading of the night is at the Central Library tonight. Ken Auletta interviewed a bunch of people who work for Google and came out with a book called Googled: The End of the World as We Know It. One day, far in the future, there will be a comprehensive book about Google. This isn't that book, but it's a great first step. You should go to this reading and ask Auletta what Google Wave is for.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

And Open Books is hosting Tod Marshall and Rod Slate this afternoon. Tod and Rod* will read from The Tangled Line and The Great Wave, respectively. Both are on their second collection of poetry. Marshall is from Spokane.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

* Poetry!

Martin Limon reads at Seattle Mystery Bookshop from his book G.I. Bones, which is about a ghost, a red-light district, and the army. Also a missing girl. It is fiction.

The Central Library is hosting an event from Jack Straw Writers. The Washington Center for the Book co-presents this reading by local authors Lana Hechtman Ayers, Madeline Ostrander, Storme Webber, and the outstanding Kim-An Lieberman, among others.

The Fantagraphics Book Store is hosting Al Columbia, who is a great cartoonist. Pim & Francie is a wonderfully weird new comic book. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks like kind of like a nightmare I had once when I watched a bunch of vintage Mickey Mouse cartoons and ate some improperly thawed Pizza Rolls.

And at Town Hall, it's time for a benefit event titled Exposed to the Cliffs of the Heart. This is an evening about our responsibilities to the earth. Someone will talk about the Bible and how it pertains to global warming, someone else will talk about science, and then the great authors David James Duncan and Sherman Alexie will come out and kick everyone's ass.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Daniel Arnold discusses his book Early Days in the Range of Light, which is about the early days of mountaineering, back when men used to murder bears with their bare hands just because they felt like it. Needless to say, this will be a manly reading.

Barnes & Noble ups the manliness ante (manteliness?) with Ben Thompson, the author of Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters and Military Commanders to Ever Live. You can almost choke on the testosterone from here*.

If manliness isn't your thing, Richard Paul Evans is up at Third Place Books. The Christmas List is "a new holiday novel of hope, love, and redemption." None of those things are manly.

But the manliest reading of the night is at Pilot Books at 7:30 pm. It's the debut issue of Area Sneaks, a new literary magazine that also explores visual art and publishes portfolios of great artwork. The editors are coming from L.A. to celebrate, along with oulipian local poet and novelist Doug Nufer, who is the Manliest Man of Letters in Seattle. If you haven't seen Nufer dressed up like a park ranger, you do not truly understand what manliness is. He will probably not wear his park ranger outfit tonight, but one would hope that he'll wear something suitably manly instead, like a torn piece of leopard skin.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

* Disclaimer: There are women in Badass. They have iron ovaries.

It's Cheap Wine and Poetry tonight at the Hugo House. John Burgess and Kate Lebo. Essayist Elissa Washuta will also read. And Brian McGuigan, the Hugo House's resident media relations/event organizing whiz-kid will be reading too. It is his birthday today. He will hopefully be spanked after his reading, which is how many poetry readings should end anyway. Wine is a dollar a glass.

Open Books in Wallingford is hosting a poetry reading that probably shouldn't end with a spanking. David Biespiel will read tonight. Here is a piece of a poem from Bespiel's new book The Book of Men and Women: "Bloom and decay, and without question / Our eyes have opened to blackness and what is left unsaid: / This passage of delight is our sorrow and our bed."

Fremont Place Books hosts the Seattle7Writers tonight. The press release says "Maria Semple, Randy Sue Coburn and Kit Bakke are the Seattle7Writers, an upstart group of local published writers working to enrich Seattle's literary landscape." They should start enriching the landscape by taking a math class or getting three more writers.

Pacific Science Center hosts Andrew Chaikin. Chaikin interviewed a bunch of astronauts and came away with A Man on the Moon, "a definitive account of the Apollo 11 mission."

And at Town Hall, James McManus reads from Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker. Like everyone else in the world, you probably secretly suspect you are better at poker than everyone else.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

UPDATE: Chihuly canceled.

Last night, the writer Lydia Davis spoke at Benaroya Hall. (Brendan Kiley wrote a really fine essay on Davis and did an interview before she arrived.) Not Nordstrom Recital Hall, the smaller hall, but Benaroya Hall, which has opera boxes and balconies. Most of the seats were taken. I was in a box on a balcony, and because of the scale of things, Davis looked like a figurine to me. I have virtually no idea what she actually looks like, except I can say that nothing about her appearance is notable at a distance.

She read a talk that she had meticulously prepared. Its subject was her influences, and it turned out to be much better than that sounds. She focused on "eccentric forms"—especially short short stories, and stories that might be confused with poems. She described how she made her way to those forms despite the pressure that she write more "normal" fiction. She read a story that relates, called "The Mother," from her 1986 collection "Break It Down":

The girl wrote a story. "But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel," said her mother. The girl built a dollhouse. "But how much better if it were a real house," her mother said. The girl made a small pillow for her father. "But wouldn't a quilt be more practical," said her mother. The girl dug a small hole in the garden. "But how much better if you dug a large hole," said her mother. The girl dug a large hole and went to sleep in it. "But how much better if you slept forever," said her mother.

She said that her mother does not like this story.

The talk worked so well in part because when she read something, because the things were short, she was able to read all of it. We heard stories and stories.

It occurred to me afterward that it might be good to assemble a list of the writers she recommended, in case you want to chase them down. So here goes:

* Kafka, "The Married Couple"
* Beckett, short fiction
* Isaac Babel, war stories
* Grace Paley, "Wants"
* Robert Walser, Peter Altenberg (Kafka's contemporaries)
* Russell Edson. Lots of Russell Edson. Such as: "Waiting for the Signal Man," "Dead Daughter," "When Things Go Wrong," "New Prose About an Old Poem"
* David Foster Wallace, "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"
* Rae Armantrout (poet)
* Sparrow (poet), including his "Poem":

This poem replaces
All my previous poems.

Things that Davis does not recommend:

* Hemingway's famous shortest story: "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."

SF Weekly tells the tale: Bay area resident Sean C. wrote a negative review of Ocean Avenue Books online. He started hearing from the owner.

"It wasn't anything really bad," Sean C. says. "But obviously it was enough to push her over the edge." First came the alleged onslaught of hilarious/disturbing e-mails to his account, such as "Goodbye pussy boy and I will be contacting your employers." You can read the other messages on his Flickr page. No one answered at the bookstore when the SF Weekly called Tuesday evening.

I especially like this one, because it was obviously written by a lover of literature:

But this wasn't any ordinary online confrontation. That's right: MEATSPACE SHOWDOWN! Sean C was sitting at home when he answered a knock on his door. A blond woman then forced her way into his house, dropped some movie passes on the floor and tackled Mr. C, who then forced her out of his house and onto the street. It was only when he called 911 and the police arrested the perpetrator that he discovered that she was the proprietor of Ocean Avenue Books. He is unsure how she found out where he lives. Moral of the story: DO NOT FUCK WITH BOOKSELLERS.

(Via Seattle Book News on Twitter.)

I have been informed that I left out a reader in today's Reading Tonight. (Have I mentioned that I'm riding on three hours of sleep?) University Book Store added a reader to their genrepalooza tonight: Local author Cherie Priest will read from her new steampunk novel Boneshaker.

Boneshaker is set in Seattle, but it's a very different Seattle from the one we know. Priest wrote an apology to our city yesterday on Amazon.com's Omnivoracious blog. Here's the beginning:

As you may be aware, Amazon.com is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. As you are somewhat less likely to be aware, I kind of, sort of, completely demolished this city in my most recent novel, Boneshaker. So at Jeff VanderMeer’s suggestion (and invitation), I thought I’d take a moment and offer some heartfelt apologies and explanations for myself, here on one of Amazon’s exceptional blogs.

You see, it wasn’t personal; it was only convenient. By my tenth or twelfth time on the Underground Tour, I was getting some nasty ideas about the interesting ways this city could host a zombie horde and some very tall tales for my book. I wanted a wild place with wacky local history, and some persistently gloomy weather, and maybe a rough-and-tumble nineteenth century population from which to draw. And with a checklist like that, where else could I begin?

I'm excited to read this book, and Priest's presence, combined with Jeff Vandermeer's detective fantasy novel Finch, this makes the University Book Store reading look pretty attractive.

First, the not-so-good: Laura Day, who is the author of How to Rule the World From Your Couch, will allegedly show you how to amplify your brain and control your intuition to get things done. Funny how "amplifying your brain" used to mean "getting smarter." Now it means "paying twenty-four bucks for a useless self-help book that promises you magical powers."

Just got an e-mail yesterday about a reading at the Jack Straw Studios on Roosevelt. Five poets published in Floating Bridge Review #2 will give a reading: Dennis Caswell, Jim Gurley, Alicia Hokanson, Marge Manwaring, and Eve Preus. The only poet of these that I have read is Manwaring, but she is very good.

Also in the U District is a more genre-specific reading. Jeff Vandermeer and Cat Rambo will read. Vandermeer's Finch is a novel about how "mysterious underground inhabitants...have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law." It's a detective-fantasy pastiche. Rambo's Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight is about a fantastical port town filled with dryads and the last known living elephant.

At Town Hall, it's Brad Matsen. Matsen is the author of a biography of Jacques Cousteau titled Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King. I do not need to tell you why this book is awesome.

And Lydia Davis reads at Benaroya Hall tonight. Brendan Kiley wrote a great review of Lydia Davis's new collection of stories in the book section. Here is a tiny taste of that review, in which he remarks on the existential hum that is so palpable in Davis's stories:

Living in that mental hall of mirrors could drive a person mad. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote about a friend who described taking heroin and immediately understanding the seductiveness of the drug—it shuts down the existential hum and allows us to feel, for the first time, entirely at ease.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

There are two readings at Town Hall tonight. Brian Fagan reads from The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, which is about how other civilizations got fucked by climate change. And Rich Benjamin also reads at Town Hall. Searching for Whitopia is a good-but-pretty-slow book about how white people are fleeing other races to live behind fences in the country. I think this may be a case where the reading will be more entertaining than the book it is promoting.

But the real one-two punch is at Third Place Books tonight. At 5 pm, they have HULK HOGAN. That is not a misprint: Hulk Hogan will be reading at Third Place Books tonight. Hulk Hogan is basically the opening act for John Irving, who also reads at Third Place Books tonight at 7:30 pm. It kind of makes sense: They both like wrestling! I wrote about John Irving a few days ago on Slog—I like his early stuff but have not at all enjoyed his recent stuff. Still, I have to make this the reading of the night. You can read the rules for the Irving event here.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.

The first event today is at Seattle Public Library. At lunchtime, a librarian will read two great short stories: "Man from the South" by Roald Dahl and "The Story About a Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God" by Etgar Keret. The pairing of Dahl and Keret is decidedly brilliant. I hadn't thought of those two authors together before, but now it seems really obvious.

University Book Store hosts Jeff Hertzberg, MD and Zoe Francois. They wrote Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. Baking bread is one of those things, like combing my hair, that I want to do but just can't find the time. Someone try this book out and tell me if this "5 minutes a day" thing is for real.

At Third Place Books, horror novelist John Saul reads, two days too late for Halloween. The titular house in Saul's new novel House of Reckoning is haunted. Perhaps it is haunted with reckoning.

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt are at Town Hall. Freakonomics was not that good or intelligent a book, but it was incredibly successful. I bet that SuperFreakonomics will be even less intelligent and good and even more successful.

But Heather McHugh at Elliott Bay Book Company is the reading of the night.